Red Hat Training

2.5. File System Formats

Read this section for a summary of changes to file system format support between Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.

2.5.1. New Default File System: XFS

XFS is a very high performance, scalable file system and is routinely deployed in the most demanding applications. In Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7, XFS is the default file system and is supported on all architectures.

Ext4, which does not scale to the same size as XFS, is fully supported on all architectures and will continue to see active development and support.

2.5.1.1. Changes to mount options

Unlike ext3 and ext4, the XFS file system enables the user_xattr and acl mount options by default. This means that you will encounter errors like the following if you include these options at either the command line or in /etc/fstab.

Ext3 and ext4 file systems do not enable these attributes by default, and accept these options when you use the mount command or mount them with /etc/fstab.

2.5.2. Btrfs Technology Preview

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 introduces btrfs as a Technology Preview. Btrfs is a next generation Linux file system that offers advanced management, reliability, and scalability features. Btrfs provides checksum verification for files as well as metadata. It also offers snapshot and compression capabilities, and integrated device management.

2.5.2.1. Kickstarting btrfs

In a kickstart file, to create a partition on the system, you would usually use the part command with the --fstype to create a partition that used a particular file system, like so:

part /mnt/example --fstype=xfs

However, in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.0 and 7.1, btrfs is treated more as a device type than a file system type. As such, btrfs is not a valid value for the --fstype parameter. Instead, use the btrfs command to define a btrfs volume, like so:

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